WATERCOLOR DEMO, PURPLE IRIS-HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOUR PAINTING IS FINISHED

This is a demo of a painting I began in a recent watercolor class I was taking. I'd like to say that it's also a good example of the age old problem of how to know when your painting is finished.  But since that's a lesson I still haven't learned after 30 years of painting  I'll let you watch me NOT know when a painting is finished so that maybe you'll do a better job at it.  LOL  This is also a lesson in using a limited palette in your painting.

All Paints in this demo are Windsor Newton and the paper is Arches 140 lbs. Cold Press.

Colors Used:

French Ultra Marine Blue

Alizarin Crimson

Sap Green

Aureolin (Yellow)

1.)  Below is my sketch and my beginning washes.  I was happy with this and thought it showed great promise.  I made my purple by mixing a combination of Alizarin Crimson and French Ultramarine Blue.  You'll also notice I'm bringing some Aureolin Yellow into the flowers to tie in one of the other irises that I intend to make all yellow.  By using as few paint colors as possible and mixing them to achieve other colors you need you give a cohesiveness to your painting.  

2.)  In this next step I'm continuing with my flower washes and I added the first glaze to my background by mixing the Aureolin with Sap Green.  I covered some of the leaves while I was glazing the background because I know I'll use this layer of glaze as an under layer when I build the leaf colors up later on.  I consciously choose a yellow for the bottom front iris so that it will pop forward.  I also want to tie the whole painting together by using bits of the same yellow on my other two iris flowers and using it in my green background color mixture.  It was at this point that I also decided to do this painting in a vignette style (not finishing it to the outer edge of the paper).

3)  Okay, now I've darkened my background (this turned out to be a Bad Move as far as I'm concerned) considerably by mixing a lot of the French Ultramarine Blue and a bit of the Alizarin Crimson into my Sap Green to make it darker.  At this point the leaves are still the color of the first background glaze and the flowers are the same as they were in the previous step although they might look a bit different because of the difference in background hue.  You might notice that at this point both flowers and leaves are fighting to be the central point of the painting and that's not a good thing.  There can only be one star!

4)  In the finished piece below you can see that I further darkened my background.  I did this by using an Indigo Prismacolor pencil to blend in some of the blotchiness and darken the background around the three iris flowers and leaves hoping to pop them all forward a bit.  I also used a Dark Green Prismacolor pencil for that purpose and to solve the problem of the leaves fighting the flowers for attention.  I shaded them darker so that they would recess further into the background which would make the flowers pop forward.  

Also, in this last step if you look closely you can see texture on the leaves from the pencil.  If you choose to use colored pencil as I do you have to add the texture all around your painting here and there, which I did, although it's probably difficult to tell in this photo.  If you don't add it in places everywhere around your painting the spot that you did add it to will look out of balance and the viewers eye will go right to it.  Using a Deep Purple and Indigo Prismacolor pencil I sharpened up and deepened the iris flowers, as well.

Using Prismacolor pencils in your watercolors is definitely not the norm.  It's a habit I developed out of being too lazy to achieve the same effect with a small watercolor brush and more glazing, which is how it really should be done when you're painting in this particular style.  But, I'm no watercolor saint.  I break whatever rule gets in my way nowadays.  LOL  Eventually, I'd like to try doing this last step, a step I just can't seem to resist for some reason, with watercolor pencils.  But, I haven't experimented with them nearly enough to feel confident using them in a painting yet.  Perhaps that calls for another "Paint Along With Me And Watch Me Make Mistakes Demo".   :-)  

My Comments:  Was this a successful painting?  Not really, as far as I'm concerned.  If you go back to the first photo of this demo I quickly lost that light, washy, watercolor look that was my original intent for this painting and that I thought was so pretty.  The background is probably the problem and I lost it the minute I put in the first glaze and made it too heavy.  Right there my background began fighting with my flowers which I had to correct by darkening the background and so the problems began.  As the title of this post says, sometimes it's just good to know when to stop fussing with your work and let it be.  I think I should have stopped many glazes before I did!  So, after 30 years at this it's still a continual live and learn process for me.  Mistakes are great teachers and I'm a slow learner!  I hope I can spare you from making some of the mistakes I've made by letting you learn from mine.

Thanks so much for looking in...comments are always welcome and appreciated.